by Paula Fox
The next morning, just as Elizabeth and Gran finished breakfast, Deirdre came to the door.
“Deirdre, I’m glad to see you,” Gran said.
“I doubt that,” Deirdre said rudely. She walked right over to the easel and stared at the painting resting on it.
“What’s that supposed to be?” she asked.
“What you make of it,” Gran replied. Deirdre shrugged, came to the table, and thrust out a note. Gran took it and read aloud, “Won’t you both come for a sail with us in an hour or so?” It was signed Helen.
“Would you like to?” Gran asked Elizabeth. Deirdre marched off to a window. Grace drifted over to her. Deirdre began to bend, her hand reaching out to stroke the cat. Abruptly, she stood up straight and crossed her arms tightly across her chest.
“If you decide to come, don’t bring food,” Deirdre said. “Mama’s making her usual horror picnic—wet cheese sandwiches and squashed tomatoes.”
“Is Aaron going?” asked Elizabeth.
Deirdre looked at her with scorn. “You think they’d leave him alone? Maybe when he’s fifty.”
Gran began to wash the breakfast dishes.
“I’d like to come,” Elizabeth said.
“Be down at the dock in an hour,” snapped Deirdre, and left the cottage at a run.
“She wouldn’t let herself pet Grace,” Elizabeth observed.
“She’s fighting a war.”
“What war?”
“To show there is nothing in the world that pleases her,” said Gran.
“Why?”
“I don’t know why.”
“Is it because they like Aaron so much more than her?”
“What makes you think that?” Gran asked sharply.
“They don’t pay attention to her except to tell her to stop whatever she’s doing and leave Aaron alone. But they’re all over him.”
“Is it your opinion that five pounds of attention equals five pounds of love?”
At Gran’s words, a fire seemed to flare up inside Elizabeth’s skull, burning her cheeks. “They sent me away when that baby was born!” she cried out. She sat down on a chair so hard it rocked.
“That baby,” echoed Gran. She was drying a cup. After a moment, she spoke. “They did not send you away. They sent you to me,” she said in a steely voice.
The hour, at the end of which she was to go to the Herkimer dock, was nearly up before Elizabeth spoke another word.
“Are you coming?” she asked.
She had been reading one of Gran’s art magazines with desperation, trying to blot out a sense that her outburst had let loose some ungainly, mortifying thing that would now inhabit the cottage like a hobgoblin.
But Gran replied genially, as though nothing bad had happened, “Oh, no! I’ve always hated sailing … all that shouting—‘coming about … hard to lee …’ And you have to fling yourself from side to side so the boom won’t decapitate you. Oh, no!”
“Well, I’ll be going,” Elizabeth said.
“Have a lovely time, my dear,” Gran said with warmth. “I’ll miss you.”
By the time Elizabeth arrived at the dock, the Herkimers had gathered. On the top of Mrs. Herkimer’s head rose a straw hat like a tepee. Several paper bags were at her feet. Aaron wore an orange life jacket, a sun hat, and long pants. Deirdre watched her father in the small sailboat as he bailed water that had collected in the cockpit with a rusty coffee can.
“This is a family tradition,” Mrs. Herkimer announced to Elizabeth. “Every summer, we have our picnic at Little Bear Island. This will be Aaron’s first time. Did you remember to bring the thermos, Deirdre?”
Deirdre, one arm around the mast, nodded.
“And I’ve made biscuits,” said Mrs. Herkimer.
“For ballast,” said Deirdre.
“Biscuits are traditional in our family,” Mrs. Herkimer continued as though Deirdre hadn’t spoken.
“‘Over the sea in a pea-green boat …’” chanted Aaron.
“Ready. Let’s go,” called Mr. Herkimer. “Give me the picnic stuff. Where’s the blanket? Deirdre, let go of the mast. Helen. You first, then Aaron, then Elizabeth.”
A fresh wind plucked at the loose ends of the sail. As both Mr. and Mrs. Herkimer reached for Aaron to lift him from the gangway, the boat swung wildly.
“No!” he wailed. “Let me get in by myself!” But his protest was drowned out by his father shouting that they wouldn’t go at all if Aaron was going to misbehave.
Though they were still anchored, their voices were caught by the wind and flung out onto the bay. Elizabeth felt a sudden excitement. She was glad Gran hadn’t come. She was glad the Herkimers were so noisy and crazy.
The sail was let out. With a great smack, it caught the wind. They were off.
“What happened?” Gran asked as Elizabeth burst through the door several hours later, her hair in a tangle, her arms and neck sunburned.
“What a day!” cried Elizabeth. “Oh, those soggy sandwiches! That oily lemonade! Mrs. Herkimer talking about the glory of simple food. The tomatoes must have been sliced with a comb. When we got to this little island, it was rocks and a couple of runty pines and a tiny cove. Mr. Herkimer was mixed up about the tides, and he took this tremendous leap over the side and landed in about two inches of water.
“I thought he was supposed to be the quiet one in that family. He turned into the monster captain … he never stopped shouting orders—‘Shift! Duck! Sit up!’ And if Aaron wiggled his finger, they all started screaming at him. Just before we anchored at Little Bear, Aaron yelled, ‘I’m getting off this horrible ship!’ and they threw themselves at him so we nearly keeled over. When we got back, Mrs. Herkimer said she hoped I’d enjoyed a day of family sailing. Then Deirdre said, ‘Don’t thank her. It will only encourage her.’”
“I knew I had good reasons for staying home,” Gran said, laughing.
“But in a way, it was wonderful,” Elizabeth said. “I had a wonderful time.”
“Life is strange.”
“Like the Herkimers.”
“I guess so. I’m going to make a cheese rarebit for supper, and while I’m doing that, I think you ought to write home. I noticed a pile of letters from your mother on the table.”
Elizabeth glanced at them. They were filled with the astonishing news that Stephen Lindsay could hold his head up without wobbling, and that he really smiled.
She made a little space for herself at Gran’s worktable among the brushes and pencils and tubes of paint.
She wrote briefly that she had gone for a sail with Gran’s neighbors. Then, for the first time in a letter home, she mentioned Aaron. “He’s a thin, little boy with eyes like a panda’s. He says whatever he thinks.” Elizabeth realized she was smiling as she wrote these words.
When she was finished, she looked up to see Gran watching her intently. Had she been looking at her all the time she was writing her letter? She turned her face away from Gran as though from too bright a light.
But Gran said, in a matter-of-fact voice, “Come to supper.”
When Elizabeth had sat down, Gran held up her hands. “The weather’s changing. I can feel it in my thumbs.”
“I’m sorry I said that—in the morning—about being sent away,” Elizabeth said.
“You said what you thought,” Gran said.
The next morning, Elizabeth awoke to the sound of a heavy rain pounding on the roof. Gran had made a fire in the little hearth. The cottage felt deliciously warm and safe. Gran produced slickers for them to put on when they wanted to go to the outhouse.
After lunch, the rain stopped. By then, Elizabeth had made a start on To Kill a Mockingbird. It was a sleepy day. Gran worked on her drawing of El Sueño.
Toward the end of the afternoon, Elizabeth glanced at the windows.
“Look at the fog! You can’t see outside,” she said.
A few minutes later, she heard muffled voices. There was loud knocking on the door.
Gran went to open it.
The Herkimers stood on the threshold, their faces glistening with moisture.
“Is Aaron here?” cried Mrs. Herkimer, looking frantically into the room.
“We can’t find him,” Mr. Herkimer said grimly.
Behind them, Elizabeth glimpsed Deirdre, her shoulders bent as though she’d been struck across them.
9
The Herkimers huddled together in the middle of the room, and the posts that had suggested trees or columns to Elizabeth now looked like the stout wooden bars of a cage. Fog swirled through the open door. Grace, her tail down, shot up the staircase.
“Has he been here?” Mrs. Herkimer’s voice trembled as she asked this question, and her breathing was audible. She was not wearing her pearls. A loud crack came from the fireplace as a flame-weakened log snapped and fell among embers.
“I haven’t seen him today,” Elizabeth said. She wondered if anyone had heard her. The Herkimers continued to stare at her longingly, as though she could free them from fear.
“He wouldn’t get lost,” Gran said quietly. “He knows the island by this time.”
“How can anything help in this fog!” cried Mrs. Herkimer. She grabbed Deirdre’s shoulder and began to shake it. “You were supposed to watch him, you miserable girl!” she accused her.
“Stop it, Helen,” Mr. Herkimer said, gathering his wife close to him.
“I was going to see him … but the weather … I was reading,” Elizabeth said faintly.
Mrs. Herkimer covered her frightened face with her large hands. When she took them away, she appeared to have gained some composure. “It’s no one’s fault,” she said.
“We’ll all look for him,” Gran said briskly.
“Not you, Cora,” said Mr. Herkimer.
“But I will,” Gran said without even glancing at him. “Get the flashlights, Elizabeth. The slickers, too.”
He had wanted to be lost, Elizabeth remembered. Aaron, she cried silently. “We ought to try the cemetery first,” she said. “We usually met there.”
“The cemetery,” Mrs. Herkimer repeated dully.
Gran kicked down the last log in the hearth, and it broke into a shower of sparks. “We’ll leave a light burning to come home to,” she said. She bent to turn up the wick in a kerosene lamp. Everyone watched her in silence.
As the wick caught and the chimney appeared to swell with the light, Deirdre said, “I’m scared.”
Mr. Herkimer put his other arm around her. He looked at Gran. “You mustn’t, Cora. I really wish you’d stay here. We’ll be glad of Elizabeth’s help.”
“After we’ve done some searching, we’ll report back to your house, John. I’ll be fine. One of you ought to stay at home in case he comes back.”
“I’ll stay,” Helen Herkimer said. In a despairing voice, she added, “I’m the clumsy one, anyhow.”
The Herkimers left.
“How can we find our way?” Elizabeth asked.
Gran hung a slicker over her shoulder and pressed a flashlight into her hand. “A step at a time,” she said.
They went out of the cottage. “Look, it’s thinning,” Gran said. “You can see a bit of the sand spit.”
They went over the slope to the meadow and up past the Herkimer house. It took a long time. They had to move slowly. Each step was like a deep-drawn breath.
It was only because they knew the way so well that their feet found paths their eyes couldn’t see.
The fog was denser in low places. The light brush of grass against her legs, the hard roots in the ground beneath her feet, a sudden strong smell of balsam—these things comforted Elizabeth.
But her mind was filled with terrible images: Aaron dazed, wedged between rocks or clutching at seaweed and stones, trying to pull himself out of the bitter cold water, or wandering in circles in the woods.
The flashlight seemed to concentrate the fog, to turn it a sour yellow that blinded her. She turned it off. When she looked down at the ground, she was able to recognize the low, thorny bramble she knew was close to the barn.
“I’m going toward the ridge,” Gran said. “You try the cemetery.”
Elizabeth went on. Without the flashlight, she could spot a familiar clump of flowers, or a fallen bough, or a pile of stones that Aaron had gathered. A web of dampness covered her face and hands. At moments, she held out her arms in front of her, her fingers brushing tree trunks and low branches. She stumbled constantly on roots. It was like moving through a sack filled with wet cotton. She heard a distant foghorn lowing mournfully like an immense cow.
She came out of the woods. The fog was thinner. She looked up and saw a narrow stretch of starry sky. After a few more steps, it disappeared. She had to burrow like a mole into the long meadow.
Suddenly, her right knee hit a gravestone. She stood still. “Aaron,” she called, as her fingers touched the grainy, rounded surface of the stone.
There was only silence. Were there ghosts? She wished there were. She felt so alone, so fog-chilled and helpless.
She went on. She heard waves breaking, withdrawing with their catch of pebbles and shells. She must be close to the farther end of Pring. There she could turn and go around the point and come back on the other shore. Then she remembered the great, black, jagged rocks.
The fog broke suddenly. She was on a point of land, looking at the ocean. The moon was nearly full. For a moment, she forgot why she was there. She looked at the water world, glinting, beautiful. The island was like a great ship. For a second, she had the illusion it was moving out to sea.
“Aaron!” she called urgently, again and again. There was no sound but the waves.
She went back past the cemetery. The fog still lingered in hollows like swaths of torn cloth. A low breeze sprang up. Soon, the Herkimer house loomed before her.
As she reached the screen door, Gran was walking slowly and heavily from around the barn. When she saw Elizabeth, she shook her head.
In the living room, the three Herkimers sat in a line on a sofa, each face like a pale, vacant mask. But as Gran and Elizabeth came in, they all stood up, and Mr. Herkimer bowed his head slightly as though this were some formal occasion. When he spoke, his voice was low, as though trying not to wake someone who had fallen asleep in some other part of the room.
“Our sailboat is gone. I’ve radioed the Coast Guard. There’s a wind starting up and it’ll blow the fog away, but it could blow a boat away, too. I’m sure Aaron took it. He always talked about sailing away. A boy’s joke, I thought.”
“The wind …” muttered Mrs. Herkimer.
“You can’t be sure he took it,” Gran said. She spoke with effort, as though out of breath.
“There was a coil of rope on the dock. Neatly done. The way I showed him how to do it,” Mr. Herkimer said.
“You could have been careless, not tied up the boat properly. Anyone can make a mistake,” Gran said.
“Go home, Cora. You must!” His voice rose, shockingly loud. “There’s nothing we can do. The Coast Guard will find him … if the boat’s afloat.…”
“It’ll be all right,” said Deirdre. “Daddy, you taught him what to do. You know he remembers everything.”
Mrs. Herkimer began to cry soundlessly. Deirdre lifted herself onto her mother’s lap. Her head covered most of Mrs. Herkimer’s face, as though she could staunch her mother’s tears with her mop of hair.
Gran stood. “We’ll come back in a while,” she said softly to Mr. Herkimer. He wasn’t listening. She and Elizabeth went outside.
“We can’t really be sure he took the boat,” Gran said. “I want to keep looking.”
“I’ll go to the other side of the ridge,” Elizabeth said. The fog was gone now, and she wasn’t so afraid to chance the wild beach.
“And I have another place or two in mind,” Gran said, her voice sounding faint.
Elizabeth shone the flashlight at her. She looked so old, her face collapsed as though the bones beneath her flesh had softened. “Go home,” Elizabeth said. “Please! You loo
k terrible.”
“I can’t bear to stop yet,” Gran said. “I can’t bear it.…”
They separated at the cottage. Elizabeth watched Gran walk past the dock and on toward the boulder where the cormorants came to dry their wings. She set out for the path up the ridge. At the top, the wind blew hard. But Elizabeth could hear the throb of an engine. Several hundred yards from the shore, a powerful searchlight cast its circle on the black water. It must be the Coast Guard boat.
She made her way down the ridge. The tide was high, the surface of rocks and stones wet. She struggled to keep above the waves that broke and foamed, gripping the roots and crooked branches of small trees, grabbing handfuls of sea grass, stepping on stones that rocked with her weight.
She passed above two coves, pools of moving darkness that absorbed at once the light of the flash she directed into them. She reached a farther cove just after passing the tidal pool where she and Aaron had watched the tiny, scurrying crabs.
Something bobbled, as a top does when it slows down. Before words could form in her mind, she knew it was the tip of a mast she had glimpsed below her. She shone the light.
The Herkimers’ sailboat swung slowly from side to side, its bow caught between two rocks that rose from the water like canine teeth.
Tied to the mast by his shirt, his bare shoulders and chest luminous where moonlight touched, stood Aaron, his head fallen forward as though in sleep.
“I didn’t find him,” Elizabeth said. “I just saw him before the Coast Guard did. They were almost as close to the boat as I was.”
“He did the right thing,” Mr. Herkimer was saying, “exactly as I taught him … he remembered what to do.…”
“You shouldn’t have taught him to do anything,” Mrs. Herkimer said accusingly. “It put ideas into his head, as we have seen.”
“Anything puts ideas into your head,” remarked Deirdre, carrying a tray of mugs of tea from the kitchen.
Aaron lay beneath a blanket on the sofa where, only a couple of hours earlier, his parents and sister had sat in dread. His hair was in damp spikes. He looked at the circle of faces of those who gathered around him. He seemed dazed.